the way import declarations work has changed quite a bit with 2.071. two
aspects have been written up nicely by steve schveighoffer (
http://www.schveiguy.com/blog/2016/03/import-changes-in-d-2-071 ).
breaking as they might be for some, they are (a) a mere enforcement of
the rules as they were always set out and (b) a change in look-up order
preventing hijacking/overshadowing.
it appears that there had been an even more radical change as well with
respect to the way mixin templates work. this has not been properly
communicated yet. at least i could not find a write-up and a related
thread conveyed rather guesswork than knowledge. (
https://forum.dlang.org/post/nl2bgi$2oim$1 digitalmars.com )
from this thread i tried to distill the gist below... so that if my
understanding is confirmed by the language devs, it may serve as an
explanation of changes complementary to steve's blog post.
----
mixin templates - https://dlang.org/spec/template-mixin.html :
"A TemplateMixin takes an arbitrary set of declarations from the body of
a TemplateDeclaration and inserts them into the current context."
as of the the specs https://dlang.org/spec/module.html imports are
declarations too and before 2.071 the mixin template design spec above
would work for them just the same. as in:
```
mixin template AddImp (){
import core.thread;
}
mixin AddImp;
```
this would import core.thread just alright into the current scope.
regardless where the instantiation happens, module level as well as
within classes etc. (note that the mixin template definition can be in
another module and itself be constructed by more mixin templates or
string mixins.)
especially if
```
module a;
mixin template AddImp (){
public import core.thread;
}
```
and
```
module b;
mixin AddImp;
```
ie on module level, then in module b core.thread as a whole would be
visible/accessible/imported.
apparently starting with 2.071 import declarations are not treated as
declarations in the sense of mixin templates anymore. meaning that whole
module imports (private and public) in mixin template definitions are
not inserted into the instantiating scope anymore. neither if
instantiated on module level, nor if in a class etc. it is not that the
look-up order has changed for them, they are blatantly ignored now.
(and this is what i am not happy with it. it would be more consisting if
the imports would be inserted in the current scope just as they were
before but with the local definitions having precedence - similar to how
issue 10378 was fixed - just as it would be if you actually wrote
"import core.thread;" instead of "mixin AddImp;" also, it would not
leave me with a ton of code that needs rewriting.)
on the other hand, if not a whole module is imported but individual
symbols via selective import, it still works the same as before. eg:
```
module a;
mixin template AddImp (){
public import core.thread : Thread;
}
```
and
```
module b;
mixin AddImp;
```
will make Thread available in all of module b.
----
please correct my view of things if i got it wrong.
thanks
/det

it appears that there had been an even more radical change as
well with respect to the way mixin templates work. this has not
been properly communicated yet. at least i could not find a
write-up and a related thread conveyed rather guesswork than
knowledge. (
https://forum.dlang.org/post/nl2bgi$2oim$1 digitalmars.com )

The question is: Was it intentional?
Imho, it is weird that template mixin have different behavior
than modules with respect to import visibility. I don't see a
reason, why a public import should not be exported.

apparently starting with 2.071 import declarations are not treated as
declarations in the sense of mixin templates anymore. meaning that whole
module imports (private and public) in mixin template definitions are
not inserted into the instantiating scope anymore. neither if
instantiated on module level, nor if in a class etc. it is not that the
look-up order has changed for them, they are blatantly ignored now.

I understand this position. Note that with the new import rules,
importing a module wholesale into a scope is not nearly as damaging as
before (where everything overrode locals and even module symbols). In
most of the changes, the import succeeds, but is just not selected first
to avoid hijacking. In this case, it looks like the import is simply
ignored. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Even when the import is intended to add a specific member to the
function, this doesn't help. e.g.:
a.d:
module a;
import std.stdio;
struct Foo
{
int x;
void fun() { writeln("fun ", x); }
}
void gun(Foo f) { writeln("gun ", f.x); }
b.d:
module b;
mixin template AddImp (){
import a;
Foo f;
}
c.d:
import b;
struct Bar
{
mixin AddImp;
void bar() {
f.fun();
f.gun(); // worked before, but now fails!
}
}
void main()
{
Bar b;
b.bar;
}
What is the point of disallowing f.gun()? It's literally part of the
intended interface of Foo, why can't that be had? I see no reason to
disallow this. If I defined a gun(Foo f) in c.d, it would override that.
There's no hijacking possible.
In order to properly write AddImp, I'd have to find all the possible
ways that Foo could be used given UFCS, and import those as selected
imports. This is not how it should be IMO. The blunt fix would be I
guess to public import a at module level, but that's opening up all
importers of b to a's code.
-Steve